v.63 – “I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts.”

v.74 – “May those who fear you rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in your word.”

v.79 – “May those who fear you turn to me, those who understand your statutes.”

Psalm 119 sets forth the ways that God’s Word should touch our lives, including our participation in the Body of Christ.  Living in the Word means living in the Body, and living in the Body must involve certain aspects of the Word.

The New Testament instructs us to be in fellowship with a faithful church (see Acts 2:41-47; Hebrews 10:24-25).  Four letters in the New Testament refer to the church as a Body, reminding us that we are parts of a living organism (Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 10:17; 1 Corinthians 12:12-28; Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 4:4-26; Ephesians 5:30; Colossians 1:8, 24; Colossians 2:19; Colossians 3:15).  The rest of the New Testament never refers to the church as a “body,” but instead simply use the term “church,” “saints,” or “brothers.”  The terminology varies as each passage emphasizes different aspects of fellowship.

…“I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts.” We should actively befriend anyone who fears the Lord and follows His precepts.  People with fleshly mindsets befriend only people who can help them or benefit them, or people to whom they feel attracted.  They form little cliques of friends within the church and ignore everyone else, making others feel left out.  This verse is not merely talking about showing love and kindness to everyone, as in 1 Corinthians 13.  We should be “friendly” or kind to everyone, but a “companion” or closer friend to godly people.  Psalm 119 says we should be actively investing time and sharing ourselves – cultivating friendships – with those who have the (unfortunately rare) trait of fearing God and consistently living according to His teachings.

The criteria given here for the recipients of our companionship are also important – they truly fear the Lord, and follow His precepts.  A person who claims to be a believer, but who lies, swears, cheats, or has other vices lacks the fear of the Lord – their actions betray that they are not concerned about displeasing God and do not tremble at the thought of His wrath.  Unbelievers and phony Christians alike are good at rationalizing their own conduct and convincing themselves that they are “good people.”  It is hard to find people today who live in reverence of the Lord and take Him seriously.  “Following his precepts” is more than obeying a list of rules.  “Precepts” are the concepts or principles that we glean from Scripture, the lessons we learn about what God likes and what grieves Him. This takes spiritual maturity and a thorough knowledge of the Word.  Immature Christians like only simple rules, patterns, and orientations.  Spiritually mature people want to see things the way God sees them, to respond to things according as God desires.

“May those who fear you rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in your word.” Psalm 119 challenges us to be a blessing to the godly people around us, so that they are happy when they see us.  Here, this is the writer’s prayer; the verse discussed above was a descriptive statement.  We should pray for God to help us be a source of encouragement and delight to God-fearing believers.  We pray that God would deliver us from misunderstandings, unnecessary divisions, and inadvertent interpersonal offenses.  “For I have put my hope in your Word.” People place hope in their leaders, their politicians, their wealth, their families, and their friends.  This is natural.  We need to hope in the Word, trusting that putting it into practice will bring us blessings and protection.  A person like this is a delight to other godly people.  Deeply spiritual Christians feel mysteriously drawn to each other; they have a profound bond and unity.

“May those who fear you turn to me, those who understand your statutes.” Here the writer prays for those who fear God to “turn to him” as opposed to turning away from him – that they would welcome him and accept him.  This is a good subject for our personal prayer life.  Again, their defining traits are important – he longs to be close to the people who know and understand the Word (God’s “statutes” or “testimonies”).  As believers, we should seek to have people in our lives who know the Word well, from whom we can learn.  This helps us to grow, and their acceptance is a sign of God’s work progressing in our lives in an evident way.

God gives us His light by His revelation. He gives us this so that He might prepare a Faithful Church to live in His presence forever. His light is what guides us day by day to this holy and perfect destination.

What message did the Apostles preach? Many people today assume that the Apostles preached the same type of messages they always hear in their church. Those who always hear “prosperity preaching” or “motivational messages” tend to assume the Apostles preached like that as well.  Those who always hear intellectual, scholarly messages tend to think the early church parsed verbs and had sermons about Hebrew grammar. Yet the Bible tells us explicitly – in several places – what Jesus and the Apostles preached, and it did not resemble most of the preaching we hear around us today.

John says their message was simple: God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Complete holiness, no compromise or mixture, no mistakes. No darkness at all is in Him. The people in the ancient world worshipped false gods who were a mix of good and evil, who had strengths and weaknesses. Their religions were full of compromise and relativism. Even today, we see leftover symbols from ancient religions like the “ying-yang” that depicts the forces of light and darkness as equal. These false deities and false religions created the expectation that their followers would also be a mixture of good and bad, light and darkness. They could not offer pure light.

We must not mix God’s light or revelation with any human ideas or opinions. There is no darkness at all in him, no mistakes, nothing dependent on our culture, time, or preferences.

The second part of the Apostles’ message was about religious hypocrisy and spiritual consistency. Every religion has people who claim to be faithful but who really follow their own way much of the time. The early church preached an all-or-nothing message about obeying the Lord. They had no category for “carnal Christians” or worldly believers. As John puts it, claiming to have a relationship with Christ (“if we say we have fellowship with him…”) while walking in darkness makes us liars, people who do not put our beliefs into practice (“do not practice the truth”). In the Bible, “truth” is something you do, in addition to something you believe. Today, people think it is enough to believe the truth without “practicing the truth.”

Their message, however, was not just a negative-sounding condemnation of hypocrites. There was an amazing promise: for those who walk in the light, we grow ever more integrated into a living, spiritual body – the Body of Christ (“fellowship with one another”), and we receive cleansing from sin through the blood of Jesus. The “fellowship with one another” is something miraculous, not merely the warmth and familiarity that naturally comes from meeting with a group of people for a long time. True fellowship is an operation of the Holy Spirit that transcends human friendship and collegiality. This type of true fellowship – the miracle of the Holy Spirit weaving us together in a faithful church – is a necessary component of a genuine relationship with Christ. It is a consequence or result of walking in the light, living in revelation and putting the truth into practice. This is the definition of fellowship.

The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Most Christians understand that the blood of Jesus provides atonement and forgiveness. Yet many never understand that it also removes sin from our lives, transforming us into godly people whose lives are set apart for God’s purposes. This is the definition of sanctification. This was a basic part of the Apostles’ message.

How do we define “walking in the light”? John tells us: “…as he is in the light…” – that is, like Jesus. Jesus was consistent in listening to his heavenly Father’s voice, saying what the Father told him to say, and doing what the Father told him to do. He was in the light all the time – living out the revelation from Eternity, never deviating into this world’s darkness or sin. That is how we should walk in the light, in God’s revelation. “In your light, we see light.” (Psalm 36:9) “The unfolding of your words gives light.”  (Psalm 119:130).